“No retreat. No surrender. Let’s fucking go!”
Zarian moved straight into the bloody fray. His cloak reared up behind him as many limbs and monstrous mouths. He even summoned the Morphs grimoire to join the other three grasped in Para’s many hands.
The heavy drumming grew louder, faster. The orange and red streaks pulsated with more intensity on every surface. Sulfuric smoke and burning ash stread around the dining hall until an imnse shockwave or rapid series of blows blew them away, creating temporary pockets of clear air.
As the haze trailed around the Madness Wizard and his monstrous cloak, Zarian and Para switched strategies on the fly before the hell orcs crashed down upon them.
The mad parasite duo juked and danced. And the blood crazed hell orcs raged and raged.
Heavy, crude, large axes ca down hard upon Zarian and Para. Every chop, every strike, had the power of hell and muscle behind the swing.
The hell orcs weren’t just strong, either. They were fast, too. Even with Zarian pushing his body to the zenith, the hell orcs had him outmatched.
At least physically.
But not ntally.
Not in a sense that was cunning.
And not in a sense that was crazy.
Zarian didn’t plan to dodge around their strikes forever. But he stayed on the move as best he could as he tested his Aura Mastery and Bloody Lifesteal against the orc’s blood power-up.
Para used scythes and hooks on the end of her tentacles to latch onto the floor and pull Zarian out of the way when his legs weren’t fast enough. Multiple axe strikes missed him by a hairbreadth and cleaved into the floor instead.
Zarian kept testing and testing, as his body grew hot, hungry, and more spirited. The deadly threat of the blood-berserk hell orcs rained down upon him as they roared and chopped with a frenzy.
Para spread more of her consciousness into Zarian, weaving her parasitic strands more with his body, reinforcing his muscles as they tore up when he moved harder than he should.
She helped him stay squirrelly, keeping one hell orc in the way of the other two, using their hulking size against them. Together, they circled around like a whirlwind, if that was what it took.
But it had to be ntioned again that Zarian’s body couldn’t keep this up forever. Not even with helpful boosts from Para.
For the first ti in a long ti, sothing more fitting for the role of lee put his body through the wringer. And this one struck worse than anything before.
An axe chopped through Zarian’s right shoulder, through his ribcage, and out of his side. Half of Zarian’s torso, along with his head, flipped into the air in an explosion of gore.
Soone scread in shock.
The gory horror of Zarian’s injury could lead to a collapse in cohesion and spirit for the Floridians. But he stopped that shit from happening with a simple ssage sent through the spider network.
Chill out. I got this.
He had the hell orcs figured out.
He stread and strung his aura through the grooves and spaces inside the uncommon Bloody Lifesteal spell. He used all the research and studying he’d done the past two months regarding blood magic and abilities of all sorts.
Ezda had turned out to be his biggest aid in that regard, be that she was the best Blood Brute and strongest gnoll across the entire World of Castles and Caverns. Studying her especially was a big boon for Zarian, leading to this mont.
Zarian used Aura Mastery Bloody Lifesteal to invade the hell orc’s blood magic and tap straight into their life energy and guzzle it down. Then it went further than that. Far, far further.
Each hell orc flinched back. The hulking creatures lost a part of their berserk craze as a dark and invasive force grasped at the most important thing at their core.
Zarian touched their souls.
And they had quite the number of souls, each one of them.
Zarian couldn’t do much more than that. The important part was draining heaps of life energy into himself to cancel death outright.
Then Para did the hard work. She solidified his geyser of blood and turned all the gore splatter into stretchy strings. From there, Zarian’s body pulled back together sloppily, not quite fitting correctly, like he was a frumpy sausage puppet.
That was fine. Because he was smiling ear-to-ear.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Literally.
His mouth split open like a reptilian. Maybe more like a short-snouted gator. New sets of jagged teeth appeared as his jaws shifted into a more monster-like form. His human limbs grew out more claws and spurs of sharpened bone similar to the monstrous limbs ford by his cloak.
As another axe ca down and chopped off a few arms on the left side of him and Para, Zarian lunged forward. He took a bite out of the orc’s side with multiple monster mouths from Para doing the sa.
Their lost arms reconnected, brought together by parasitic strings. Zarian’s life energy replenished itself again as he drained directly from the hell orcs, turning their own blood berserk power against them.
From there, Zarian and Para feasted. They made the hell orcs bleed as the mad and monstrous duo ripped away chunks off of them, the life energy pouring free and fast. There was no better high. Zarian felt like he was riding on a rollercoaster made of pure adrenaline and ecstasy.
The many souls combined into one squirming gestalt scread as the hell orcs’ fear grew.
Slling that fear, Zarian and Para structured a portion of their mind to take advantage of so of the wizard’s traits. Zarian’s body beca more frenzied without him losing his cunning and craze.
A horrifying dread filled the surrounding air. And pieces from the hell orcs’ mind tore away, making them forget in small microseconds what they felt, thought, or were going to do, half-blinding them to Zarian’s and Para’s maneuvers.
The duo kept stealing life energy and mories. They kept stealing bravery and flesh. They kept a dark taphysical grasp on the many, many souls combined into the cores of each hell orc.
The hell orcs freaked the fuck out, swinging their axes off instincts alone, striking each other, spilling more blood, making their life energy gush with a faster rush, and giving Zarian and Para more room to unleash more chaos with other spells.
The duo and hell orcs dropped into the Quagmire Pit together. Para ford so of her limbs into a tail, propelling Zarian around like a predator in the swampy water.
They made it rain Void Acid above the surface. Each drop passed through the quagmire and the thrashing orcs, tearing away whatever they ca in contact with to toss into the void.
They also applied the Void Madness spell to further destroy the hell orcs’ minds. That made it difficult for them to use their skills as Zarian and Para swam in and out between the hell orcs.
They took away more chunks of flesh and blood from the hell orcs with many monstrous mouths. Before the hell orcs launched themselves away forcefully, the duo launched out of the quagmire and used the Water to Sli spell from Morph.
They changed the quagmire into sli that was more conducive to electricity. They followed up with a thick torrent of bright red lightning that lit up the hell orcs until they finally burst out of the quagmire to chase after the wizard and his cloak.
Zarian’s gator-grin grew even wider as he changed from using Aura Mastery Torturous Lightning to using Void Layer Tortuous Lightning.
That turned the lightning torrent from bright red to almost infrared while phasing straight through flesh, hurting aura channels while disrupting skills. All of this stacked on top of the effects from Void Madness, which made it harder for the hell orcs to use their skills.
The blood force they were leaning on winked away.
Zarian lost so of the output on life energy, but not all. And he had more ways to get it.
The sharpened ends on Para’s whipping tentacles tore up the hell orcs and drained more life energy from them. In their desperation, in their fear, the hell orcs tried to strike down with wild axe swings that were too obvious and too wide.
Zarian’s form beca too shifty, too slick, too serpentine for them to hit now. They missed and missed, all of their efforts leading to them getting coated in more Black Fire. Then they suffered a wide-array of other enhanced spells that broke them down until they reached their limits and tried to ignite their auras.
Another blast of void lightning stopped them.
Without hope, and without enough vitality to keep up the fight, the hell orcs died off one by one. Zarian and Para drained them of their life and destroyed their bodies.
The many souls scread as they unraveled from each collective core inside the hell orcs. Once the souls faded, the flesh burned down and left charred bones and embers. The weapons turned to rusted flakes and useless puddles of tal.
Zarian remained standing as so freakish and monstrous creature, like a cross between human, gator, centipede, and other nightmarish beasts. The Parasite Cloak 3 flexed and waved with dozens and dozens of limbs.
There were a few extra limbs grown from Zarian’s shoulders and sides as well. Para also had multiple monster heads, so wolfish, so serpentine, growling and panting heavily besides his head.
The at they’d ripped off the hell orcs stayed with the man and parasite. Now they knew there was only one way to feed themselves.
Para said it for them both. “We must eat them alive before they die.”
Zarian hissed. “Yes.”
Naomi strolled up while still standing as an eight-foot tall cat woman. She lifted the brim of Zarian’s monstrous wizard hat with a finger and revealed his visage fully.
Zarian’s gaze traveled up to see into Naomi’s eyes. Their brown depths and sharpened irises contained a mix of annoyance, feistiness, and glee.
“You made scream,” she said openly.
“I have a divine revival charm,” he grunted.
With the end of her fluffy tail, she softly slapped the side of his face. “I still ended up screaming like a little girl. It’s your fault.”
“You’ve killed with your own hands back in the Chira Tyrant Lair. Why are you acting like this now?”
“It’s still your fault. You better own up to it.”
Zarian had sothing risque on the tip of his tongue when a big rush of healing energy entered his body and interrupted him. He turned to see the others taking so ti to relax, having defeated the other three orcs together.
Gilbert wasn’t even looking toward Zarian and Naomi as he healed up injuries.
The big man had a frown on his face while leaning against a table. He held out his legendary shield to examine its heavily damaged front.
A little further beyond Gilbert, Hannah sat on a chair made of cubes next to Bianca’s giant form, who rested in a knelt position, her wings folded around her body, her shining face turned toward the exit.
Loner was patting Slip’s armored head, the two summons looking a little beat up but not by much.
Zarian looked back to where the hell orcs had co from.
The drumming had faded away. It was still there. But now it was more in the background.
It looked like the Floridians had defeated the first trial. The Grimrock Hell Gate wouldn’t be sending out anymore of their welcoming party for now.
They could chill out for a bit and take stock of things.
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